Research

Well it’s been awhile since my previous post, not to say that I have been slacking. I have actually been doing some traditional sketching and development (as well as exterior work) that has eaten into my time. However, enough with the complaints and excuses, I have slacked of a little with the project and that is all that is needed to be said. With this in mind though, I have been producing the logo for the game, going from the selection of a type face that is both suitable and appropriate for the project, through to the development.

Now, I’ve found that there are a few different types of font to start with, such as Roman serif, Roman sans-serif, Roman script and Roman ornamental. Theres Blackletter, Monospaced, Symbols and others in between. Choosing the right type of font to start with has a real importance to the direction that the font will take and what it will communicate.

Font_types.png ‎(274 × 449 pixels, MIME type: image/png)

There is a lot of variation in each of these, but you can see that they are fairly distinctive in how they feel. Serif’s appear to be the most formal. However, sans-serifs are clean, sharp and crisp. Scripts are more elegant, soft, flowing and almost feminine, blackletter is clearly old and antique and monotype feels geeky and clearly something like symbol is hard to decipher.

There was a lot I had to learn about in regards to the appropriate use of type, for example the difference between fonts and typefaces, Kerning, Capitalisation, Size and Leading to name a few.

Taking size as an example, I have found that the size that your type is displayed at along with the amount of white space, conveys a different message. Taking the below images as an example, the image to the left is bold and brash, it shouts at you, making its point there and then. Where as the image to the right is more quiet, peeking curiosity, it is almost telling you a secret.

Next I looked into capitalisation, this is also something that can portray a specific message, All uppercase lettering appears loud and brash almost as if you are shouting at the audience. Whereas all lowercase has a more friendly feel to it.

The communicative requirements were also something I pondered on for quite some time, if I was primarily looking at producing a piece as more of an aesthetic to give the user a feel of spooky but friendly fun, does it need to be legible? I mean, we are all capable of associating to logos and icons, so is this a route to explore? After some deliberation I decided that YES this needs to be legible. and so I set about continuing my research and development, finally narrowing down my choices.

As you can see from the above image, I was looking for a font that would help communicate beyond the word its self that this game is a little creepy. This decision came from designing this game for a target audience that has no age restrictions. So I needed to establish a font that would look friendly but creepy yet not scary as such (gotta think of the kids) in both a visual aesthetic and in the meaning of the word. This lead me to limit my selections down to a single typeface that will be used thematically throughout the project, starting with the Title and Logo. Horseshoes by Lauren Ashpole. I will of course purchase a Licence for this font when the time comes.

Ok, ok, now for the big reveal about my use of the written word. I’m dyslexic! (maybe not that big of a reveal due to all the spelling mistakes on this blog lol) Not many people are aware that there are differing forms of dyslexia and for myself in particular, I read words through the outlining shape they make more that deciphering the individual letters of the words. This has actually helped me in the creation of this identity/title/logo, as I wanted to ensure that the visual aesthetic of the work also communicated on a very easy to understand level. So I began altering and refining the chosen work to adapt its original structure when written by scaling and minimally rotating some of the individual letters. That has ultimately enabled me to find what I believe through research and experimentation to be the most appropriate design for my project.

Moving into Adobe Illustrator I began to experiment with making the type face look spooky (enter the Slime). However, after a few days playing with creating slimy letters I decided that the over all feel just wasn’t working. The colours chosen where too vibrant and the slime looked more like snot that an oozing ectoplasm. So I have started over and feel that this time round it appears to be more appropriate. There is still a lot of work to be done and maybe even some additional variants but here is where I’m up to.

From This

To This

To This

I’m sure you can see what I mean about it looking snotty. Any way, here is the version I am currently working on.

From this to this

This is beginning to feel more like what I want, it has an earthy undertone (Thanks to colour choise) but is looking a little too creepy for what I really want. That I hope I can dilute with some additional graphics on the text. Vines, leafs, bite marks, cuts, bruises etc.

First, some visual research thanks to Pintrest and Google Images I have collated a good amount of visual reference of both Carrot Characters and plane old Carrots. This will greatly aid in the design of the Health and Zombie versions of the Carrot character (watch this space)

So, it’s been a couple of days since my previous post (that’s the problem with having a job, kids and GAMES, GAMES and more GAMES to play) but here we are.

Anyway, as you know I have been looking at vegetables and have finally come up with a list of possible veg to use as characters. It did slightly adapt from the list in the previous post but is not a million miles off, this list was then given to a group of people who had to select seven of them to be developed into game characters. The Below PDF shows the complete list and the final 7 characters.

So… one of the fundamental mistakes I made during the initial design of the game (more specifically the characters) was an assumption on the classification of my Vegetables. Initially I had designed characters based from… a Potato, a Carrot, a radish, an Onion, Broccoli, a Pea and a Pumpkin. There are some mistakes in there as some of them are not VEG!

Original Zombie Pea Design

Original Zombie Potato Design

Original Zombie Pumpkin Design

Original Zombie Onion Design

So I need to look into my food a little further if I plan to make this accurate. One of the main reasons for this (aside from the game title being Vegetrouble) is that this will allow me to expand the initial idea into other food groups for sequels. Anyway enough of that old stuff for now.

Now onto the important part, the research. Of course, there are a lot of things we eat that we may think of as Veg but let me tell you… tomatoes, Cucumbers, Pumpkins, Sweet Peppers and many more are not actually Veg. I always believed in the classification based on a simple couple of rules, if it grows above ground and carries its own seeds, it’s a Fruit. If it grows in the earth it is a Veg. This is still a good method to use as it is fairly accurate. However, following these rules, where would you put things like Broccoli, rhubarb, Lettuce or Peas for example? This is what prompted me to begin researching vegetables (oh the excitement is just bursting out) so I could just find out what was appropriate to use and what wasn’t.

So, after some reading up and generally researching around the exciting world of Fruit ‘n’ Veg, from a botanical stand point you can define a vegetable as all other parts of a plant that are not the seed areas. This includes the leaves (like you find on a cabbage, sprout, or lettuce), the stems (such as rhubarb or celery), the roots (like carrots, spuds or radish) and even the flower buds (cauliflower, broccoli).

All this research has lead me to the following list of potential characters for the game.

So today I began to consider the aesthetic and overall look that I am wanting to achieve with Vegetrouble. To get this pinned down I started with some basic research on visual presentation and the first two elements I came across was the rule of thirds and the Fibonacci sequence.

Rule of thirds:

The rule of thirds looks at the composition of a visual, whether that be a photograph, painting, video or other. This is more of a guideline than an actual rule but it is universally known and followed. The premise being that if you where to take your visual and split the image into three horizontal and three vertical sections all of equal size, you would want the focal point of your image to be sat on one of these slices (preferably one horizontal and one vertical, so… at the cross sections). These are natural points in an image that the human eye is drawn to. Here are some examples of this.

Marek Denko’s Souvenir overlayed with the Rules of Thirds GuidesRyan Church’s Godzilla concept art piece from June 2012 overlayed with the Rule of Thirds Guides.

Fibonacci Sequence:

This is one of my faves, this little calculation works by adding the two previous numbers together to get to the next number in the sequence. so… 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 and so on. This equations when transferred onto paper in a visual form makes a sort of spiral, this spiral and mathematical calculation can be seen everywhere in nature and is known as the golden rule. Below are a few stock images I have used and overlayed the Fibonacci pattern over the top, just to illustrate its existence in nature.

The Fibonacci Spiral Layed over an image of water spraying from a ball under Centrifugal force.The Fibonacci Spiral Layed over an image of a galaxy.The Fibonacci Spiral Layed over an image of a Cactus.

And so.. the time has come to do some expeimentations of my own, looking at both the Rule of Thirds and the Fibonacci Sequence I will begin laying out some guides to aid in the development of the games Ident and some Character designs.